July 1st New Moon Eclipse

Our mid-year eclipse season is soon to be capped off with the third in a trio of eclipses… this one, a new-moon solar eclipse in Cancer (on Fri Jul 1), tapping into the epoch-redefining square between Uranus and Pluto.

We already covered the general ‘chapter-turning’ nature of eclipse periods in my description of last month’s solar eclipse… and, as I’m sure many of you have continued to notice, this climactic quality that’s marked our past few weeks persists.

Now, following the brusque discharge of emotional truth afforded us by Jun 15’s lunar eclipse in Sagittarius, we meet our last eclipse for this round. That the eclipse-conjoined Sun and Moon form a grand cross (a four-way aspect-configuration of squares and oppositions) with Saturn, Uranus and Pluto makes this one a doozie… an opportunity to declare care-based intentions, in the face of macro-level forces of change bearing down, seemingly from every end.

The astrology of Friday’s eclipse will hearken us back to last year’s ‘cardinal climax’, when these same three planetary players—Saturn, Uranus and Pluto—formed the tightest phase of their T-square. (Jupiter, then in early Aries and conjunct Uranus, was involved too.) The square between Uranus and Pluto remains the big headline for another five years, while Saturn had mostly moved out of orb from tangling with these two. But due to Saturn’s recent retrograde (which wrapped up just a couple weeks ago) having brought him back as close to Uranus and Pluto as he’s going to get for now and the position of the eclipse Sun/Moon at 9 Cancer (hitting the cardinal degrees midway between Saturn at 10 Libra and Uranus/Pluto at 4 Aries/6 Capricorn), these tense planetary interactions are being temporarily recreated at this heightened eclipse moment.

Thus, this conspicuous recurrence practically begs us to look back on the distance we’ve travelled over the past year, since mid-2010’s ‘drama-queen astrology’. Under extreme pressure from multiple angles simultaneously, we suffered the effects of larger collective currents beyond our control and/or channeled their momentum into big moves of our own audacious choosing. We pushed hard and smart, or we held on for dear life. How has the situation progressed since then?

Those who dared to create, initiate or innovate have now seen something of a return. The effort has either taken off (no matter if just modestly so), or fallen flat. A year is a healthy amount of time to expect the signs to show themselves, after all. In this era of revolutionary reinvention, nobody can afford to dismiss reality’s stack of tangible evidence, loudly hinting at one verdict or another, just to protect the ego’s groundless dreams. This is when we recommit or move on… and just so we’re clear, neither option necessarily equals ‘Failure’ or ‘Success’, with the self-aggrandizing capital letters.

Those who froze in fear or resisted the call to stay up-to-date with changing circumstances… well, it’s hard to imagine that inertia or immobility served you terribly well, as this simply isn’t a period where status-quos can be counted on to survive unaltered. Likely, things have worsened, yet again re-presenting the same conundrums in starker strokes; don’t trick yourself into ignoring symptoms of further decay and degeneration. Hasn’t it gotten bad enough to finally spur some action on your part? If you are one of the rare few who’ve managed to stabilize the boat between last year and now, please don’t take for granted the many compensatory counter-balancing moves you must have made, in order to still be standing. Are you blind to your own inventive survivalism? Give yourself the credit due; it was no accident.

Saturn’s notable reappearance on the scene, squaring this eclipse from Libra, both (1) reminds us of the value of coolly considering ‘the other side’, and any specific individuals who comprise it, when seeking to establish lasting solutions and (2) warns us against superficially going along with the seemingly peaceful compromise, if our emotional insides cringe and cramp at the notion of giving in when we know it feels wrong.

While this Cancer eclipse inspires us to proceed by the instinct to nurture, the Saturn-in-Libra square, when used positively, also pushes us to explicitly negotiate with the involved parties, to ensure our ‘nurturing’ is actually something they want. (Well-meaning presumptuousness can spell big problems for Cancerians.) On the other hand, such ‘negotiations’ can be a futile exercise in maintaining appearances, if we say only what we imagine they want to hear… while withholding certain inconvenient details, out of supposed ‘care’ for them. (How exactly is dishonesty-by-omission a demonstration of care?)

Of course, familiar newsmakers Uranus and Pluto, who still have yet to form their first exact square (still nearly a year away, with six more exact peaks to last through 2015), impose their radical message upon this eclipse, too. We are accustomed to discussing this developing Uranus-Pluto square in terms of the macro-level revolutions it’s rousing in our collective institutions (e.g., governments, economies, corporate interests, social benefits). Uranus in Aries, an incitement of the individual’s impulse to dramatically disidentify with orthodoxy in favor of personal liberation, is pitted against Pluto in Capricorn, a rising confrontation with powerful authoritative structures which have become bloated with greed-driven corruption and will fight ugly to preserve their plutocratic dominance—a consummate equation for the class-based conflict we’re just now getting a heftier whiff of.

But Uranus and Pluto are also stirring micro-revolutions in our individual lives, as we each embody this ongoing struggle between (1) emphatically doubling-down on our intent to chase those long-term goals our inner achievers ardently long for and (2) deciding, often at a moment’s notice, to defiantly jump off the ladder rather than continue a slow (and maybe endless?) climb, which would keep us obedient servants to mainstream values that smother our inner fire. This eclipse reasserts an awareness of this struggle, the core components of which may otherwise become obscured by the circumstantial travails of daily life.

In opposing Pluto, this eclipse suggests the potent impact of tender, emotionally sincere human connection (Sun/Moon in Cancer) can have in helping us overcome any coercive tendencies in our unequal interpersonal power-dynamics (Pluto). Too often, we find ourselves in relationships where we’re pressured to repress key parts of our personalities and/or thwart our independent aspirations, purely to suit the other person’s predilections. While blame can certainly be pointed at manipulative or controlling partners, we must also accept our own responsibility for agreeing to go along with it. It always takes two to tango.

Just as much as jealous or insecure power-trippers derive their dominating thrill from keeping another person ‘in line’, so too do the passive or fearful types take a quiet smug satisfaction from having someone else to cast as ‘the villain’ while they suffer their self-sabotage. Yet, one engaging glance in each other’s eyes—and into each other’s souls—will wordlessly slice through the manipulations and justifications, revealing whether there’s love or terror, genuinely nurturing intent or cool narcissistic disinterest. Words may convolute, but direct emotional intuition is difficult to deceive.

The eclipse’s square to Uranus urges us to stay current with those we care for, lest we attempt to provide nurture based on outdated notions of who our loved ones are. As we wiggle and jerk in our separate manners, pressed to reinvent or risk defeat, we naturally diverge from one another, immersed as we are in our own individuating endeavors. Such circumstantial separations can be bridged, however, once we wistfully notice a connection has faltered… and take it upon ourselves to reach out from our strange new spot, reenergize our bonds, and affirm the need for our evolving selves to retain conti

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on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 14:01 and is filed under Astrology.
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Vanessa, thank you for sharing your loving journey with us. You have expressed yourself passionately and truthfully from the sweet spot we call the Heart of Life and this is the alchemy that we must all now perform. transform lead into Gold…lemons into lemonade, the I to the WE. Good luck and blessings to you – Devorah

I just have to say you’re dead on. Last year the love of my life went away across seas and things were very rough emotionally and mentally for us. I have to say that although he’s not in my arms yet, he will be soon as he got word he’ll be in the states soon. Although emotionally this is still very hard on us both and sometimes he freaks out and tries to push me away, my loving support has always brought us back to center.

Where as last year, it seemed he had to get there on his own and was just not accepting of my loving him more than is capably possible in a being and he would just brood and try to convince me that he wasn’t worth it. Now, he does feel he’s worth it, and our trust has improved a 1000 fold. Although we both are afraid to lose each other, I find that’s natural when you love someone. What matters is our intentions and actions and both of those have pure and true through the year. He still does brood from time to time and feel terrible he isnt here, but when I tell him why he’s the best partner for me, he quiets up and accepts. He’s a very alpha male who’s natural instinct is to provide for me, be there for me.

Nothing in the world is more special than the love two people share. To me when you find that person, you know in your being. Despite fears of being hurt, or losing them (feelings brought on from previous pains), what matters is getting past that with the person you’re with now. I find both of us can now talk about our pains and evolve past them. Instead of the two stags charging at one another full force.

My end is my beginning is something he’s always says to identify with his pain. Sometimes when you lose yourself to sorrow, lose yourself to your fears, to your doubts, you come up from the shadowy depths of the water and realize what matters most. Although pain is a natural part of life, transforming that pain is what matters. My year went from struggling to keep us both afloat, to both of us being on the same page and sharing our pain of not being in each others arms. We now both know we’re here to stay, we’re here to cultivate our sharing garden.